I had my 3770K and GTX 780 running in one of these: 14.7 litres with room for an AIO cooler - not too shabby I've since reverted to mATX, but my son's i5 rig now resides in the SG07. The Dan A4 looks like a cracking little case, but way overpriced IMO.
Any short run (i.e. less than around 10k produced at a time) case is going to be 'overpriced' due to production costs. You can make a £50 case with stamped steel/aluminium panels and injection moulded parts, but the startup costs to create those stamps and moulds are MASSIVE (~£10k for the mould, much more for a custom multi-panel press stamp). These startup costs are spread across huge production runs, so the cost per case tends towards the unit cost for each case, which is pretty small for injection moulding and stamping (close to raw material cost + assembly & QC labour). But if you can't produce 100k+ cases at once, and/or don't have the tens/hundreds of grand to produce those stamps/moulds, then the cost per case goes up dramatically. Instead of producing a side panel in a single press operation, each panel takes many steps to punch each hole (which may take many different toolings for screw holes, vent holes, slots, etc), plus additional steps on another machine for bending, and so on. The labour cost rises dramatically, and stays constant per unit.
I think the further we get into the "PC market shrink" the more we'll get niche vendors setting up in markets where it's viable. It's a good thing if a few thousand are prepared to pay for something more unique and less one-size-fits-most.
When I have a bit of time (and some daylight) I'll post up some pictures. Custom loopz for lyf, yo. Supremacy Nickel on the CPU, FC Titan X on the graphics card, and a slim 240mm rad (alphacool I think). Couldn't find a 3.5mm drive bay res to save my life, mind...
IIRC, that's the SG07 I sold you on the MP; an old friend. 'I've since reverted to mATX' Traitor!!!! I have been intrigued by the 2 slot mDTX boards sold as mATX that have a 1 lane slot above the 16 lane slot, allowing for a sound card or wifi card AND will fit in a 2 slot ITX case. Problem there is the distinct lack of decent spec single slot cards of late. Maybe Pascal or RX 4x0 will allow for something with some grunt and a slim cooler.
The key is to finally ditch DVI-D. DP++ Can handle native HDMI, which means single-link DVI is covered. You lose dual-link DVI and VGA though, but I'm not sure how many dual-link DVI monitors are still in operation that do not have either HDMI or DP as an alternate input. HDMI ports should not exist on a GPU at all, as it's entirely covered under DP++ with a complete passive adapter (a DP++ port in HDMI mode is electrically HDMI, just with a different pin arrangement). Switching to just mini-DP would save even more space, but full-size DP does have a latching connector by default while latching mini-DP is less common.
Here was my ITX build (RVZ01), for a while it was my principal gaming rig. I still have the RVZ01 for a rainy day - it's a great little case that one
Cheers, I thought it might be a custom loop . Tried again with my 120V when I switched to this case as my main PC, but those hoses are just too long and too stiff (fnar fnar). But... but... Where are the cables?! That's really clean, nice job .
I have one of the beta Steam Machines that Valve made a couple years ago. I upgraded the CPU and GPU and love how small it is. If anyone wanted to do a build of their own the Fractal Design Node 202 is a good choice. So is the Silverstone FTZ01. I'd really love to buy both and build them out as LAN machines. And I'm dying to do another NES PC. It's been way too long since my last.
I really didn't like the RVZ01 but that carb-fibre/zero cable has turned my opinion 180 on it. Just needs a carb fibre front now.
Thank you both @ Bindibadgi - were I to have another crack at an ITX build I think some full length carbon strips in the recesses of the front could be do-able
A case techpowerup reviewed peaked my interest last year, the Cougar QBX - CCL are retailing it for a mere £35.12 inc VAT
That's exactly the same as a Ncase M1! But for £35. Probably slightly lower build quality but impressive for the price!
There's always the Lian Li PC-Q10, which is pretty much an M1 with an acrylic side panel and a couple of slightly ropey tweaks. £100 or thereabouts.
Not quite the same: the QBX is a smidge under 20L to the Ncase's 12.6L. The QBX also supports only a single 3.5" rather than the Ncase's up-to-3 (depending on placement). It supports 120mm radiators on the side panel, but the side panel design blocks a good chunk of it. Most of the compromises in terms of wasted space are due to the use of an ATX PSU rather than SFX, and turning it side-on rather than being front-facing. Definitely a step up from the normal mATX-case-with-some-standoffs-missing school of design though.
****! My i5-3330 + H77i MB can't see my new PCIE SSD (even chose an ACHI one) even with the latest BIOS, so between that and it's overheating disks in our 30C ambient temps I might have to go back to mATX/ATX for my server. Very few Skylake boards ITX have 6 SATA. URGH it's always something.